Эд Макбейн - Privileged Conversation

She can’t stop trembling.

“There’s nobody there , is there?”

Yes, there’s everybody here, she thinks.

“No, I’m just very tired.”

“I can imagine. I’ll let you go then.”

Her father’s words.

But he doesn’t.

Ever.

“Can I call you again sometime?”

“Yes, fine,” she says.

No, don’t, she thinks.

“Goodnight then.”

“Goodnight,” she says, and hangs up, and drains the glass, and goes back into the living room to refill it. The orchestra is into the “Hornpipe” section. She turns off the stereo. The apartment goes suddenly still.

If David were here, she thinks, he would know how to deal with this, right? A fucking shrink? But David isn’t here. If Jacqeline were here, she too would know how to deal with this. She dealt with it ad infinitum and ad nauseam over the years, didn’t she, so she would certainly know what to say now to soothe the savage beast, something Handel’s venerable music apparently did not have the charms to accomplish.

Listen, she thinks, let’s either do the mantra or go hide the silverware, okay?

She swallows a goodly amount of gin, which burns on the way down, strengthening her sense of resolve. Through Understanding, Peace, she thinks. So leave us understand.

I was not responsible for what happened.

I know I wasn’t .

I was not to blame.

I know .

I didn’t need to go fuck poor Charlie.

Daddy’s dearest friend.

I didn’t need to pursue him like a lioness after a warthog, chasing him into his underground hole, yanking him out by his tail, forcing him to relive with me...

Stay away from the Incident, she thinks.

I felt no guilt over what happened.

The blame was all my father’s.

I felt only shame.

Because I wasn’t able to stop it.

Isn’t that why you make it happen again and again?

But I don’t.

Without Bess each time?

My poor darling Bess.

It’s what you do, Kate .

Is that it?

Oh, yes, that is most definitely it.

Over and over and over again.

Thank you, Dr. Hicks.

She puts down her glass. Deliberately, she goes into the bathroom and runs a hot tub. She pours in a generous amount of bath oil. She slides out of the kimono and steps into the foaming suds.

Take off the curse, she thinks.

Take off the curse.

It was all that kid’s fault in the park, she thinks.

If he hadn’t stolen my bike, we wouldn’t have met.

Gloria’s eyelids are shaded with a blue that complements her pale scoop-necked blouse and somewhat darker mini. Her narrow face, the eyes as dark as loam and somewhat slanted, the nose as exquisitely sculpted as Nefertiti’s, today possesses a curiously vulpine look that seems to say I want a part and I will kill for it — but perhaps that’s because she’s just come from an audition. Her mouth is a voluptuous contradiction to the wolf metaphor, Bugs Bunny transplanted onto Brer Fox, its upper lip flaring imperceptibly to reveal a minuscule wedge of faintly bucked teeth, exceedingly white against her chocolate complexion.

“The show is set in the year 3706,” she’s telling Kate, “in a sort of striated — is that the right word? — society where the robots are in charge and they’re chasing humans. Oh, I get it, it’s Blade Runner , right? Only Daryl Hannah’s Basic Pleasure Model is a Belgian nun, right? Anyway, the humans still wear clothes but the robots wear only body makeup. Which is understandable, since if you’re made of metal, why would you need clothes? The producer asked me if I’d be willing to be a dancing robot who wears just body makeup and these metallic stiletto-heeled pumps. I told him that could get awfully chilly in the wintertime. You know what he said?”

“What’d he say?” Kate asks.

“He said, ‘Yeah, well this is still August, honey.’”

“He wanted you to undress for him, is what that was.”

“Oh, tell me about it,” Gloria says.

“Did you?”

“No, I told him I wasn’t looking for that kind of dancing role. He said ‘Too bad, it’s a featured role.’ I told him ‘Yeah, too bad.’ Who needs that kind of shit?”

“Really,” Kate says.

The two women are in a cappuccino joint in the Village. Kate has already told her about the guy who’s been writing letters to her, and how last night she tried to scare him off, which is probably why Gloria went into the long story about the producer wanting her to take off her clothes. Now she tells Kate that she once had a guy phoning her day and night, but this was somebody she knew. Kate tells her, “No, this isn’t anything like that, this is some nut.” She keeps looking around the coffeehouse. Trying to spot anyone paying excessive attention to her. She is uncomfortable out in the city, out of her apartment. He has done that to her. Made her feel that any one of the people here in this place might be watching her as she sips at her latte .

“Have you told David about it?” Gloria asks.

“No. Not yet.”

“Is he still coming in next Tuesday?”

“I don’t know.”

“Because he told me he’d be back again on the fifteenth.”

“I haven’t heard from him.”

Gloria says nothing for a moment.

She sips at her espresso and then looks across the table with those coal-black eyes of hers and says, “That’s too bad. I was hoping to see him again.”

Me too, Kate thinks.

Because, yes, now that this lunatic has entered her life she is finding it more and more difficult to suppress what happened during that summer long ago. Which is why she supposes she couldn’t fall asleep last night, even after the hot tub, even after , in fact, she masturbated under the suds.

You’re right, she thinks, I’m a whore.

Was that the word he’d used?

Whore?

Or was it slut?

Which?

But, yes, if David does by some miracle come in next week, she would like Gloria to be with them because if there’s one thing she’s learned over the years, it’s how to restage the Bloody Fucking Incident in a variety of inventive ways. With a bit more practice she guesses she might even be able to forget entirely what happened back there in the Westport house on that August night fourteen years ago. Aluvai , as they say in the trade. But then she might start stuttering again. Or worse. Again.

But that’s all behind you now .

Sure, Jacqueline, thank you very much.

And I certainly hope so, Ollie.

Still and all, she would like to be together with both of them again.

You always do this .

You’re right, she thinks, I’m a cunt , okay?

Yes.

Le mot juste .

Exactly what was said.

“So call me,” Gloria says. “If you hear from him.”

“I will.”

“Because I’d really like to do it, you know?”

At eight minutes before curtain on Friday night, the doorman announces over the P.A. system that she’s wanted on the telephone. It is David calling from Menemsha to tell her how much he loves her and to assure her that he’ll be there on Tuesday, as he’d promised, will she be coming to the airport to meet him?

“Yes,” she says, “I’ll be there.”

“My plane gets in at seven thirty-eight,” he says.

“LaGuardia or Newark?”

“Newark.”

“I’ll be there. I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

“Why haven’t you called?”

“There’s only one car. We go every place together. I just haven’t been alone . There’s always someone with me.”